


Pen and Ink

by akire_yta



Series: prompt ficlets [470]
Category: Thunderbirds
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-08-26
Updated: 2017-09-07
Packaged: 2018-12-20 07:49:42
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 10
Words: 2,145
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11916426
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/akire_yta/pseuds/akire_yta
Summary: preludeinz on tumblr made a set of pen and ink requests





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> 1) Pen and Ink - Little Spoon

They had both taken lovers before; both felt comfortable together to discuss them.

“She was on the Swedish handball team.  I swear, she was like…” Penny laughed as Gordon exaggeratedly flung his hands wide.  “This much bigger than me in every direction.  Amazing hugs though.”

She nodded, pushing back slightly into Gordon’s chest in a subtle encouragement for him to re-wrap his arms around her.  “I know what you mean, Pierre used to rest his chin on my head, but in a way that didn’t feel patronizing, you know, just…”  She smiled, eyes closing for just a moment as she felt Gordon’s stubble catch and tug at her hair as he craned his neck.  “Yes, like that.  Safe.”

Gordon shifted again, so that when he next spoke, his breath was warm against her ear.  “Always safe here, my ladyship.”  She laced her fingers with his and snuggled even closer. “Though next time,” he added. “I am totally getting the little spoon.”

“Deal,” Penny yawned and drifted off to sleep.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Bad Day

Penny woke to the sound of her shower, and it took her a moment to calm her heartbeat, sort out reality from the dream she’d been having.  She settled, concentrating on her breathing, so that when the bathroom light snapped off and the far side of the covers lifted up, she was settled once more.

Gordon only arrived like this, unannounced and unexpected in the middle of the night, on the really bad days.

Though she’d not heard One landing, delivering Gordon to his safe space, so it must not have been one of the truly horrible days, and for that she supposed she should be grateful.

But she’s not; she’s angry and frustrated as she feels how Gordon is still breathing hard and shallow, a faint tremor under his skin.

He’d been arriving like this more and more often.

Under the smell of her own soap, she can still catch hints of fire and smoke and, incongruously, roasted meat.  It takes her far too long to put the pieces together.

“Oh darling,” she breathed, gathering him in close.

The darkness swallowed the sounds of him crying.


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> movie night

Penny tilted her head carefully.  “So,” she began carefully, mindful of the way Gordon was on the edge of his seat, despite his claim that he’d seen this film a hundred times before.  “The central theme here is…if giant aliens come from a wormhole in the sea, punch them with even larger robots?”

Gordon nodded like an overenthusiastic puppy.  “Yep! Told you it was awesome.”

Penny sighed and reached for her wine.


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> downfall

“No. Nope. Niet. Nada. Not happening.”

Penny paused halfway through slipping on her heels.  “What’s not happening, darling?”  A thought hit, and she couldn’t keep the disappointment from her face.  “Has a rescue come up?”  On date night, she added silently.

She knew when they started dating, they both did.  Work had to come first.

“What? No,” Gordon said, appearing in the doorway to the closet, his shirt only half buttoned.  He threw his tie onto the bed.  “I refuse.  I face my downfall and I say fuck no.  Penny, darling, I love you, but I cannot do one more night at some haute cuisine place  where the waiters are snooty and the food is tiny slivers on big plates.”

“Oh.” The hurt was real.  “I see.”

“No, but you will.”  He hauled her up, and nodded meaningfully until she stepped into her heels.  “Come on, ladybug, I’m taking  _you_  out for once.”

The dress she was wearing probably cost as much as all the fixtures in the diner they ended up in.  If the paparazzi spotted them, she was doomed. But the fries were salty and hot, and as they split a chocolate milkshake, Penny found it hard to care.


	5. Chapter 5

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> upper limit

She wanted to scream, but that would just undermine her point.  She settled for a petulant stomp out onto the deck.

She had hoped it would be empty, the rest of his brothers in bed after a night hard at work at the flood site.  But nothing was going her way today; John was settled in a lounger in the shade, and he lowered his tablet, eyebrow raised, at her stormy entrance.  “Penny for your thoughts?”

“That wasn’t cute at Oxford, and it’s not cute now,” she grumbled as she sank down to sit on the foot of his lounger.  

He put his tablet away.  “Spill.”

John had always been a good listener.  “I just…I love him, but some days, when he’s so immature and unserious, I just…don’t like him all that much.”  She winced, remembering too late that she was John’s friend, but Gordon was John’s brother.

But John just sniggered as he rose to his feet.  “Some days, I don’t like him either.  But then he reminds you why you love him in the first place.”  He took her hand and helped her stand.  “When you’ve hit your upper limit on Gordon shenanigans, there’s one thing I’ve found that does help.”

“What’s that?” she asked, intrigued.

“Cocktails.  Come on, you know I mix a mean martini.”

She laughed and followed him back inside.


	6. Chapter 6

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> transgression

Gordon was a happy drunk.  He was also an easy drunk, given he spent 51 weeks of the year at flight readiness.  Penny had matched him, glass for glass, and all she was feeling was vaguely warm and tingly.

Gordon was about ten minutes off wearing a lampshade as a helmet.

She’d stayed at the table, chatting with some old friends, as Gordon had gone to dance it off.  But as song changed over and over again, Penny felt her smile get tight.  “Excuse me,” she murmured, slipping out of the booth and beginning her hunt.

Gordon wasn’t on the dance floor, or by the bar, or holding court in the rooftop garden deck.

It was only the random opening of a door that gave her a glimpse of a back alley, lined with a handful of smokers trading lighters and stories.

Gordon never smoked, but then he never said no to a new experience.  She felt her nose wrinkle as she pushed through the plumes of grey-blue smoke and stopped dead.

The pink and orange monstrosity of his shirt was clear in the gloom, even half-obscured by another woman’s backless dress.  Penny watched Gordon’s hands run down her back as she attacked his mouth.

Feeling her heart break, Penny turned, back down the alley, through the club and out onto the street.

It was the cigarette smoke that was making her eyes itch and burn, she lied to herself as she opened her comm and summoned Parker to take her home.


	7. Chapter 7

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> date night

Parker knew the routine; her Ladyship would meet the young Master Gordon precisely at 10:15am, barring any emergency, in which case, Master John would let both her Ladyship and Parker himself know.

They would be seated on the patio by 10.20, the waiters fluttering around them like birds.  They would brunch, Master Gordon telling stories that made her Ladyship laugh.

Brunch would conclude by 11am, and Master Gordon would escort her to the curb and Parker’s care no later than five past.

That was the routine.  Parker sniffed and delivered a haymaker to the last of the trio of scoundrels who had set out to disrupt her Ladyship’s routine.  As he summoned the police to take them away, Parker glanced at his watch.

Ten minutes to the hour.  He had time to watch these three get led away in handcuffs before he met her Ladyship with the car at the curb.


	8. Chapter 8

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> etiquette

Penny kept the smile on her face as she took Gordon’s arm and hustled him away before he made a bad situation worst.

“Darling, didn’t anyone teach you the order of precedence?”

His blank look wasn’t feigned for comedic effect.  “The order of what now?”

She sighed as Parker materialized at Gordon’s elbow.  “Parker, would you be so kind as to take Gordon to the study to explain to him the difference between a countess, a baroness, and a Lord whilst I go smooth ruffled feathers?”

“Right you are, m’Lady,” he said with more menace than she thought strictly necessary.  He latched onto Gordon’s arm with an iron grip.  “Right this way sir.  I believe the study library has some books with pictures, should you require them.”

Gordon gulped as he was led away.


	9. Bad Day Redux

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Madilayn asked: the events that culminated in Bad Day - Gordon is obviously a mess, so the rest of the boys must be as well. Please tell us about the rest of the Tracy boys and their reactions and what happened to them. WHUMP ME MORE

The little blip that was Gordon’s comm honed in on a well-known point in the English countryside, the orangey-yellow glow warm in the otherwise cool greens and blues of the holographic displays.  Only when the blip had settled and stilled on the preset crosshairs did John dismiss the readout.

It was one of the last to go; the end of the clean up and the start of the police investigation had slowly turned all his other readouts dark as one by one they became other people’s problems.

Even after the Hub sank into darkness, John stayed where he was, suspended in the sky.  He let his eyes close and his limbs relax as he just floated and remembered how to breathe.

 * * *

Kayo raced into the oncoming dawn, Shadow living up to her name as she streaked across the still-dark sky.

Gordon had been silent the entire hop from disaster to reprieve, and the absence of chatter unnerved her more than the yelling and cursing and near-misses of the disaster that had piled onto catastrophe only hours before.

But Shadow’s cockpit still held the scent of sweat and soot, and so Kayo had turned her Bird for home the long way round, so she wouldn’t have to spend a second longer than she had to alone in the dark with the taste of ‘what almost was’ in her mouth.

 * * *

Virgil never thought he’d miss stupid banter as he was lining up for final approach to the Island.

But he’d set out with a co-pilot and came home without one, and even knowing that Kayo had safely delivered Gordon to where he most needed to be, the empty seat beside him was unsettling.

The echoing hangar just emphasized the silence.

Virgil took his time in the shower, letting hot water boil away the surface evidence of near misses and epic stupidity.  His hair dripped down his face as he stepped out, giving him an excuse to rub his eyes with a rough towel.

His room was too quiet, and Virgil carried on up the stairs to the main area.  Scott glanced over his shoulder but didn’t otherwise turn away from where he stood in front of the huge windows that looked out over the bay.

The bottle of whiskey was open on dad’s desk, a tumbler waiting for him.

Scott held out his glass, the heavy crystal making a muted chimed as they clinked them together.  “Here’s to horse shoes and hand grenades,” Scott murmured, an old toast of their uncle’s from every close call and near miss.

“Amen,” Virgil breathed and tossed back the belt.  It burned all the way down.


	10. Chapter 10

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> SinEater here. Please, oh please, oh gracious author can we have more whump in Pen & Ink: Bad Day? Alan, Brains and Grandma are missing. Maybe off the island and having to watch the rescue with the rest of the world?
> 
> Just Grandma this time

Grandma sat, just another little old lady in glasses and comfortable shoes.  Around her, the shoppers and strollers moved like the tide, though more than a few glanced up at the monitor mounted high in the corner as the news anchor continued to walk her viewers through the story that had them breaking into the usual run of daytime soaps and reruns.

Ruth had been hunting for John’s birthday present, a difficult mission at the best of times, when the word “Thunderbirds” had cut through the chatter and yanked her attention up to the  _Breaking News_  banner scrolling across the screen.

The first live cut to the scene had her sinking into the nearest plastic seat. She knew enough about rescue to see the scene was dire–strong chop and a crosswind blowing black smoke across the stricken vessel.  As the camera operator struggled to hold steady, Grandma heard the familiar sound of T2 moving into a hover over the scene.

She’d sat, on a hard plastic seat in a shopper’s food court on the other side of the world, and watched her boys fight nature and thermodynamics and the blatant greed and stupidity of other humans like they were all battles they could win.

Her nails were torn ragged as around her the lunch rush came and went.  Only when the news returned viewers to their regularly scheduled program did Ruth sigh and sit back, tipping her head back to stare up at the skylight above.

In her pocket, her comm buzzed.  It was Brains, the other half of her little band who watch and wait.  “All safe.  Disaster averted.”

Ruth stared at the words for a long time, before finally breathing in so her spine straightened and stiffened, and she rose to continue her own mission.

Disaster was what they did.  

It didn’t make watching any easier.


End file.
